Slow Cooker

On a recent trip to Costco I found this awesome new recipe book:

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101 more things to do with a Slow Cooker

I flipped through it and it has some great recipes! I was amazed that you could actually bake bread in it - so I decided to give it a shot, and it worked! The bread was a little flat and concave but it tasted great.

I'm going to try a bunch of these recipes this summer - a way to cook without heating up the house!

The dough before I put it in the crockpot, aka slow cooker. Yeah, kind of ooey gooey looking.

The crockpot with the dough inside.

The finished product.

And here's the recipe if you'd like to try it yourself:

Honey Wheat Bread

2/3 c. powdered milk
2 c. warm water
2 T. canola or vegetable oil
1/4 c. honey
3/4 t. salt
2 1/4 t. active dry yeast
3 c. whole wheat flowr
1 c. flour

In a bowl, dissolve powdered milk in warm water, then combine with oi, honey, salt, yeast, and half of both flours. With an electric mixer beat on low spped 2 minutes. Add remaining flour and beat on low until combined. Place dough in greased 4 to 5 quart slow cooker. Cover and cook on high heat 2-3 hours.

Remove stoneware from slow cooker and let stand 5 minutes. Invert bread onto a serving platter while still hot. Serve with honey butter or your favorite jam.

**I used just warm water and no powdered milk. And I did 2 c. white flour and 2 c. whole wheat flour. And I used Olive oil instead of Canola or vegetable oil.

YUM!

And two more recipes from the same cookbook, just for fun!

All-Day Salsa Chicken
3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 jar (16 oz.) chunky salsa
1 can (10.5 oz.) cream of chicken soup, condensed.

Place chicken breast in greased slow cooker. In a bowl, combine salsa and soup. Pour misture over chicken. Cover and cook on low heat 6-8 hours. Makes 4-6 servings. Serve on a bed of rice and top with grated pepper jack cheese.


Walnut-Blackberry Delight

2 cans (21 oz. each) blackberry pie filling*
1 yellow cake mix
1/2 c. butter or margarine, melted.
2/3 cup chopped walnuts or pecans, optional

Spread pie filling on bottom of greased slow cooker/crockpot. Combine cake mix and butter. Mixture will be crumbly. Pour over pie filling. Sprinkle top with nuts, if desired. Cover and cook on low heat 4 hours or on high heat 2 hours. Makes 7-9 servings.

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream lightly sprinkled with cinnamon.
*Any flavor pie fillign can be substituted.

Who knew you could do all this stuff in the crockpot?